Tim Andrews is an amazing guy and a bit of a legend amongst photographers.

He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease some eleven years ago and had to stop working as a solicitor as the disease progressed. However through various coincidences he started a project called 'Over the Hill' in which he volunteered himself to photographers as a willing model and blank canvas for their photographic musings.

This has resulted in 420 photographers creating portrait with him over the past 9 years.

I met him by chance at the Portrait Salon exhibition, where one of my photos was on display and two portraits of him were on show. I had been aware of him both through my work with Parkinson's UK and having seen his image in may exhibitions and had often thought that I should get in touch to take his portrait. Sarah Lee introduced us and we chatted for a while and exchanged details.

Some months later I eventually got round to photographing him. I chose a studio location as i wanted to use coloured lights for his portrait. He was a very willing model and we had some great conversations about dealing with loss and preserving memories. As with a lot of people that I have met with Parkinson's disease, he was very motivated to be active in his life. The "Over the Hill" project gives him strength even though it obviously was a tiring experience traveling to and being photographed by so many.

The above triptych is the result. I liked the idea that the red green and blue (RGB) of a colour photo had somehow gone wrong and three images became independent. I also liked the different emotional tones that each of them have, different phases or different moods, which is all very typical of people that have Parkinson's.

Tim is in a unique position of having been photographed by so many photographers that are all exercising their creative reaction to him, without any agenda or any external direction or motivation. A photography project in its purest form, and I'm so glad that I have been part of it. Thanks Tim.

Very exciting news, the short Sci-Fi film that I have recently co-directed with Sarah King is having it's world premier in New York Next Saturday night 16/02 at the Phillip K Dick film Festival.

Its showing at Cinema Village 3, 2nd ave, at 9:30pm. If you happen to be around, I will be in NY representing! Will do a fuller blog post on my return. But in the meantime here is a totally unrepresentative trailer for the film, of a deleted scene which was never supposed to be in it...

I have been photographing Deutsche Bank's 'Born To Be' Youth engagement program for a couple of years now - see gallery here .

They are currently using some of my images from this work on 4 advertising board at City Airport. Highlighting 4 different community project that Deutsche Bank support and might not exist without them.

St Matthews Project is a community football club, based in Brockwell park, that helps kids from the Tulse hill and Brixton estates interact with their piers through sport.

Crown and Manor Boys club provides a safe haven for boys between ages 7 - 25 and encourages both sport and education activities, through the Sporteducate programme.

Design Ventura teaches creativity and enterprise skills to 13- 16 year old state school students, helping them turn their design ideas into products.

Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank, helps over 100,000 London state school students see a free play at the Globe theatre, learn about shakespeare and meet national curriculum requirements, emphasising themes in the plays that are relevant to modern day life.

So if you are flying from London city airport check them out - they will be on show till Feb 2016.

This is Em Ford who is a Video Blogger and makeup expert. Her vlog shows her makeup technics used to conceal acne and blemishes on your face and build confidence in your apearance. However after posting for a while she started to get hate mail from people that felt that she was being deceptive and disgusting!!! She confronted the cyber bullies with this brilliant video that has had more than 17 Million views on youtube.

This portrait was shot for Grazia magazine and despite the daunting prospect of millions of people seeing your 'naked' face in print she was strong and proud.

The portrait above is also in the Photofusion Salon exhibition opening tonight and running till January. It has already been shown at The Portrait Salon at the Embassy Tea rooms and will be traveling with the show to Japan in the new year.

The photo bellow is of her after she had applied her normal makeup and the difference is dramatic, a mask that society is comfortable with and an idea of beauty that is familiar. Though I much prefer her radiance and intensity in the naked one.

As a photographer you spend your life creating an environment that might not be entirely truthful, so it was great to be on the receiving end of the same manipulation at the BA flight simulator centre at Cranebank in Heathrow.

This is a training centre, teaching and refreshing pilots' flying skills for commercial Aeroplanes. All pilots have to pass a simulator test for the plane they fly, every year, and the centre is used by many different airlines, so we had a small time slot before the next set of pilots arrived.

The centre has 18 different simulators, each one an exact replica of a different plane. Strange mechanical boxes suspended on hydraulic legs in a large hanger, twisting and turning by some unseen controller.

Inside the box, you are completely immersed in a fully functional cockpit, a 747-400-3 jumbo in our case. The engineer dials in various weather, navigation and geographic scenarios and the pilots have to land or takeoff in them. Its the last safeguard before they are put in charge of hundreds of peoples lives.

Outside the window is a 220 degree concave mirror, that reflects the simulator's live projection. It really is very realistic, especially when the hydraulics are active and the whole box banks, dips and rises just as a plane would.

Time flies (sorry) and the reality of a hanger in Heathrow melts away. The illusion is seductive, persuasive and very compelling.

I was lucky to be commissioned to follow two of the party leaders wives for a day during the UK election buildup. Justine Thornton - Ed Miliband, the Labour leaders wife and Miriam Gonzalez Durantez - Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leaders wife.

Both are successful and powerful lawyers and both had put their jobs, opinions and identity on hold for the election in order to support their husbands - smile and wave and get dissected by the media for the way they dress and look.

First up was Justine Thornton campaigning in Brighton and Battersea. The press had just dug up that, shock horror, her husband had had girlfriends before they met and that he had sex with them - personal life is public life during election time. She met the 3 local candidates and supported them. posed for photos, recounted 'safe' stories about Ed and family life and had to answer political policy questions that she never signed up for. All this while labour PR's were checking backgrounds, shielding her from questions and gently ushering her to safety.

Next was Miriam Gonzalez Durante who was campaigning in Cardiff. Again the Lib Dem Minders where out in force, mostly blocking and negotiating any scenario that might yield an off message photo.

The Election circus really is the best show in town, rolling into marginal constituencies across the country, setting up photocalls and meeting with the (selected) voting public and then once everyone feels warm and fuzzy disappearing for another 5 years - a serial one night stand - the illusion of proximity to power and the individuals influence on it.

Now, post election, of course all this has changed. Both the leaders have resigned and will return to lower profile political life, both wives will return to their jobs and all the momentary celebrity and interest in them will stop.

A dramatic end to a peak moment in their lives. Maybe I should go and photograph them again now...

"Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story" this was a cautionary joke of my Dad's, who was a journalist for the Financial Times in Israel in the 70's and 80's. But it seems that in photojournalism, this is no longer funny.Last week the World Press Photo award had to yet again make an embarrassing U turn over its Contemporary Issues award winner Giovanni Troilo's Charleroi story.

The photographer had staged photos depicting events that had happened in Charleroi, and the mayor of the Belgian city had complained that the city was being portrayed in a very negative light. The World Press upheld the award claiming that the "The contest requires photojournalists do not stage pictures to show something that would otherwise have not taken place." the last bit being important (though slightly straying into the realm of quantum physics). But then in a further twist several days later it emerged that one of the photos was staged in a different town and the photographer was stripped of his award.

It seems that the World Press, which had for years become trapped in the straightjacket of dated war and news self referencing imagery was trying to engage in new ways of telling stories. But had been caught out by 'editorialised' photography.Photo manipulation and staging is part of contemporary photography, being both widespread in Landscape and Fashion in particular, but photojournalism, setting itself up as a sacred cow, believed that their photography is pure and free of manipulation, either before or after the photo had been taken.Do we really still believe that an image is fact or is it more just a subjective narrative, and does it matter? It all boils down to trust and integrity. I'm often sent to create images that are idealised or a partial visualisations of what is before me, but they are often illustrations of a story that is being told, or a way of drawing attention to a subject. And I'm assuming that people seeing these photos read it this way. They are portraits - which are fundamentally a subjective views

However, photojournalist trade on being at least Witness to an event or its aftermath and often, crucially, they are the only ones - as journalists largely collate opinions and facts from secondary sources. A news or documentary photo story that drifts so far into fictionalisation and staging is really just little more than an opinion piece or blog. Leaving the news in the hands of Citizen photographers with their hunger for death, violence and celebrity. I would prefer my news feed to be more rich and complex than that.

By removing themselves as 'Witness' photojournalists might find that they have photoshopped themselves out of existence. Which would be a shame.

But equally maybe the long and unquestioned view of photography as 'fact' rather than 'comment' is now very dated.

Exhibition number two of the week (and shameless self promotion) is 'Women in Parliament', photography and paintings from the Parliamentary art Collection, showing at the House of Commons.

My portrait of Clare short (former MP) is in the show. It was part of my commission for the House of Commons permanent collection and has been hanging proudly on the wall in Portcullis house with the rest of the set of 7.

I wanted to shoot her in a Lobby area of parliament as that is where much of the informal work and agreements in parliament happen. This is at the top of the grand staircase leading to the committee rooms in the House of Commons.

She had been a minister in Tony Blair's government and had always been an outspoken MP, which often got her into trouble with the labour party.

She had opposed the first Gulf war and then while in the cabinet, had spoken out about the second Gulf war, eventually voting for it, but, it would seem, under duress. She resigned from the cabinet not long after and eventually left the labour party and resigned from parliament in 2010, throwing a political grenade over her shoulder and suggesting that a hung parliament and proportional representation was a good idea, in a final defiance of her own political party.

When I met her she was defiant and proud. Having been a woman in parliament that would never shy away from controversy, she was used to battling her male colleagues and the old school mentality of the house. Even though this persona was firmly fixed and on display, I was hoping to get beyond that, and maybe there is some hint of doubt and regret after a long parliamentary career.

She was very friendly and happy to humour my unprofessional questions and I was happy to work with her green jacket.

I was recently asked to photograph at The Superheros Convention in London's Excel centre, a popular photographers safari, with many pop-up studios situated around the event itself.

Everyone I approached was more than happy to pose for me and tell me in detail about their CosPlay (costume play) character and how they made their outfits. It's clearly an opportunity for people to step out of their everyday lives and become their fantasy, playing with gender and power and transforming into Superheroes of their own making.

Jimmy Mann, as apocalyptic superman

What struck me was the amount of work that went into making the outfits, with great improvisation - garden hoses, dustbin lids, body paint, and fantastic attention to detail. Beyond the costumes, the Cosplayers also made sure that they were posing as their characters would, so that they could fully disappear into the role.

There were many princesses from 'Frozen' but there was no princessy behaviour, only admiration and camaraderie that they were also into that character.

I photographed the visitors using the Excel conference centre as the background and allowing them to magically transform it from its brutally dull warehouse box into a fantastical world. I also chose couples as I found that there was an interesting dynamic in their relationships.

This last shot is of the queue of Cosplay finalist waiting to perform before the Judges and a large audience. Caught in a moment - off duty.

From a string of blogs about dead people, to "I'll Murder You", a Halloween special!

A short while ago I teamed up with the very talented Sarah King and Francesca Beard, to make a short film called "I'll Murder You".

We were making a 'poetry film' a special sub genre that I had never heard of before, for a competition that London's South Bank Centre were putting on as part of their 'Love Festival'.

We had looked at the 'poetry film' genre and it was mostly populated by women walking barefoot through woods and fast flowing rivers with a recited poem over the top. Not really my idea of film and we didn't want to make anything that was a literal illustration of a poem either.

First up find a poet. Step in Francesca Beard with her selection of beautiful, and darkly twisted love poems. Each one exploding, like fireworks, in your head and creating multiple bright visual trails for you to follow.

Second, find a story. Step in Sarah King, a fantastic writer who I had made another short film with "Glumtree", and can magically interweave subtle threads to make the richest metaphorical tapestry.

Marrying film with poetry was tricky and finding a path where neither dominate and both add to the sum was a challenge.

We settled on one of Francesca's shorter poems -

I'll murder you and keep you in my bed.

Each night I'll find you colder, harder,

less responsive.

Then one day, you'll change,

growing softer, warmer, more yielding

until the moment when I take you in my arms

and you melt.

This had space and was intriguing, and yes we did go literal on it.... we've given it a bed and a naked torso, a playground in Brixton and let it live in a new medium, and tried not to suffocate it too much.

Thanks goes to our fantastic actors Rebeca Grant Pearson who was murderous and charming in equal measure, and Henry Profitt who brought new meaning to playing dead.

And also to our fantastic crew - Sara, Bev, Dominika, Rory, Lucas, Paul, Zen and everyone else that helped out on this project.

The film was chosen for the "Shot From The Heart" Poetry Film festival at the Southbank Centre and has since also been selected for and screened at "Still Moving" film festival in London.

The 25th of October marks 10 years since John Peel's untimely death in Peru, in 2004. So I'm using this opportunity to remember the man and also delve into my archive.

I was lucky enough to be commissioned by The Guardian in April 2004 to do a portrait of him in his home in Suffolk. He had done many interviews and photo shoots before and was regularly featured in the Guardian, so this was potentially him just going through the motions.

I had always been a fan since my university days when he was the godfather of obscure band tribalism. So this could all have gone very wrong, but luckily he was charming and chatty and willing to answer my endless stream of questions.

His home was also where he kept his amazing archive of record - stuff that was sent to him, Peel sessions from the BBC Radio 1, and many many rarities - all housed, or should I say stuffed, into room after room of overfull shelves and then spilled out to two sheds and a garage in the garden. It was and is a colossal archive and was often used by record companies for rereleases as it had the only reference copy to many important early band recordings. I also remember that there was at least one volunteer / intern who was painstakingly cataloguing the collection, and basking in the great mans proximity.

On the day of my visit he was baby-sitting his grandson Archie who was not quite walking yet and had to be held at all time. I was soon to be a parent myself (Noah was born in Sept 2004) but was in the anxious and happy period leading upto the birth and of course oblivious to what comes after.

I did several shots in various sheds listening to various stories with Archie in shot too. But ultimately I asked if I could do just a solo shot of him in the record shed, and (probably in a gambit to get rid of me) he agreed. I got out my Hasselblad medium format camera and shot a roll of film of him. He had a fantastic T-shirt on, no doubt some obscure band, that echoed his persona with his 'babies' in the background.

This was a transition time for me between shooting on film and shooting digitally and I was keen to carry the self importance and slow mechanical-ness of a Hasselblad portrait with me into fast flowing river of digital photography. Also I was ignoring a major part of John Peel, he was a family man and had been at the time nearly as famous for his "Home truths" radio 4 show as the radio 1 show.

I also took a similar shot in the same shed with Archie and ultimately it would become my favourite shot from this shoot.

This was shot on my ancient Nikon D100 digital camera, a new digital age.

He nurtured his grandson as he nurtured the many bands that he took under his wing, hoping to help them grow. A photo with his two 'babies'.

Six months after this shoot he died of a heart attack, and I had shot one of the last portrait ever taken of him. The photo went on to be published many times and the solo shot was bought by the National Portrait Gallery for their collection.

I just found out that the Welsh poet Dannie Abse had died last week (28 Sept 2014).

I photographed him back in 2007 and I remember it as one of my fondest shoots.

I was send to his home in north London, to do a portrait for a sensitive story (always me) about a new book of poems and memoirs that he was releasing about his late wife. His wife Joan who he was married to for over 50 years, had died in a car crash in 2005 while he had been driving, he suffered a broken rib. After such a tragic event I expected to find a slightly broken man struggling to deal with the situation but amazingly he had found a path to hope and was full of life!

In those days I was still doing most of my portraits on my medium format Hassleblad 6x6 film camera - 12 shots per roll so no quick-fire approach here and the editors would get pissed off if you shot more than 3-4 rolls as processing was an expensive cost. I remember talking to him throughout the shoot and at one point he erupted with laughter following some (probably poor) joke that I made. Instinctively my Hasselblad clicked loudly and I knew I had got my shot!

Unfortunately this was not the shot that I was sent to take....

Inevitably the shot that was published was a reflective considered portrait of a man coming to term with grief, but strangely I've always thought that this picture would have been a much better and truer illustration of that.

Alex Salmond impressive drive for Scottish independence is now over and he has decided to step down.

I was lucky enough to do a portraits of him for The House of Commons perminant collection a while back. I was hoping to shoot him at the house of commons but dues to his obviously busy schedule, we ended up doing the shoot at Duff house, in Banff, Aberdeenshire where his constituency is.

He's was very charming and a bit of a joker too, though I'm sure this was his way of measuring people up. He came across as a bit Machiavellian, but he was also happy to play along with my requests.

All the shots in the House of Commons series here were shot in 'in-between' spaces in parliament - lobby areas where informal political agreement were done. But as we were shooting in a country house in Aberdeenshire this was a bit more tricky to achieve.

Luckily the place was decorated in blue tones, and had slightly odd double doors. I set him up with both an open door, but also a closed door behind him with one of my light beyond it to give a sense that something hidden was happening within.

Sad to hear that Lord Richard Attenborough has died. I was lucky enough to photograph him in 2008 shortly before he injured himself and went into decline.

He was an excitable and very willing sitter even though he's was already 84, and certainly very much the old pro Thespian who loved the attention. It was a studio session at the Cheltenham Literary festival and he was meeting his fans.

This is an internal promotion project for Centrica / British gas - a very large company! I worked with a design agency that had created a strategy to promote company benefits to its employees. They were producing a variety or marketing and promotion material to appear throughout the company and engage with its workforce.

So I had to travel all round the country and photograph people with boxes, but it was fun and I got to see inside such a big firm.

The Telegraph creative department recently sent me to shoot Shaun Pulfrey, the creator of Tangle Teezer, for an advertorial that was running in The Saturday Telegraph Magazine.

Shaun was famous for being mocked on "Dragons Den" TV show for his tangle free hair brush invention, that none of them would invest in - but then went on to make millions with his brush, that became a global phenomena.

I went to his offices, which are in a storage space and made this first shot on the left - technically tricky with all the reflection off the plastic boxes but quite a classic business portrait.

I wanted to make something a bit less office like but still a business portrait in approach - so no combing hair etc.. so I set up the second shot in a location that I arranged. Shot on the right.

They ended up using the office shot, but it could have gone either way and presented the art director with a nice dilemma.

Noah's dance teachers / drill Sargents on #5soldiers - slightly worried this is going to be like 'Full metal jacket'

Honoured to have two portraits selected for the BJP's Portrait of Britain exhibition on display throughout the UK in September.
This is Esaaf who is a Syrian refugee who escaped the civil war with her husband and daughter, she is now living in Bradford. Thanks to @antoinette_cumberbatch @katiedetoney and @alangittos #fabulousmagazine for this fab commission. And @slight_hitch for assistance on the day.
.
.
.
@bjp1854 #portraitofbritain #syrianrefugeecrisis @nikoneurope #nikond800 #jcdecaux #britishjournalofphotography #bradford